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LESHRC Peer Will C. pictured in the needle and syringe exchange area. (Credit: David Nager)

In New York City, the opioid crisis is seen every day in the lines outside methadone clinics and needles exchanges across the city. At the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, the record numbers of drug-overdose deaths has brought into focus the need for additional resources for combating opioid abuse.

The race for the City Council’s District 1 seat heated up yesterday as frontrunners held dueling actions. On the steps of City Hall, women’s groups and officials gathered to back Margaret Chin’s bid for reelection. Meanwhile, on the Lower East Side, over 100 people marched to support Independent Party candidate Christopher Marte’s bid to unseat the incumbent.

Szechuan Mountain House wants to bring authenticity and lots of spice to the East Village.

In a small storefront, tucked above Saint Marks Place, the new restaurant is aiming high. With hopes of being Michelin-starred one day, it has gone through great pains to craft an authentic Szechuan experience.

You might not be able to get into his clubs, but you’re welcome to attend his art show. Nightlife impresario Paul Sevigny will be showing his paintings publicly for the first time tonight at Cafe Henrie on the Lower East Side.

Sevigny is best known as a DJ, the proprietor of the legendary Beatrice Inn and exclusive boîtes like Paul’s Cocktail Lounge and the relaunched Sway, a member of noise band A.R.E. Weapons, and the brother of Chloe Sevigny. But he actually went to art school and has been painting over around two decades, said Bill Powers, owner of Half Gallery and curator of tonight’s show.

The rise in reported rapes at the Washington Square campus has outpaced the rise in the NYPD’s 6th precinct, which also covers the Washington Square Park area. From 2014 to 2016, there was a 36 percent increase in the 6th precinct, or 11 incidents in 2014 and 15 incidents in 2016. During that same period, NYU saw a 166 percent increase in reported rapes.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stopped by La Plaza Cultural Community Garden in the East Village Thursday afternoon to rail against the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to the EPA budget and the rolling back of Obama-era policies that set vehicle mileage standards and limited power plant emissions.

Five decades after psychedelics first made their mark on American culture, the promise of psychedelic drugs is being championed by artists, activists, scientists and scholars.

On Oct. 6 to 8, Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics will hold its 11th annual conference which brings together researchers and activists to advocate for expanding the use of the mind-altering in medicine and explore the use of psychedelics in art and culture, says Kevin Balktick, who founded the symposium in 2007.

Short on cash or struggling to pay bills? The answer, says Tricia Eastman, may lie in using powerful psychedelics like DMT and Iboga to address internal traumas and expand the mind.

Eastman, a medicine woman who trained in facilitating Iboga and DMT experiences for others at a treatment center in Mexico, will give a talk on money and psychedelics at East Village herb store The Alchemist’s Kitchen.

In Art of the Prank, set to release on October 9, longtime New Yorker and media hoaxer Joey Skaggs is gearing up to pull off the largest and most demanding hoax of his career.

Long before “fake news” or “alternative facts” had become a part of the public consciousness, Skaggs put together elaborate hoaxes to feed the media, like claiming to run a brothel for dogs or his portable confessional booth, to satirize the media’s gullibility and explore the media’s role in shaping and molding public opinion.

Over the past couple decades, electronic dance music has expanded beyond the realm of raves, nightclubs and festivals and received mainstream exposure as Kanye West, Lady Gaga and other major pop acts have included EDM elements in their chart-topping songs. Now, EDM has expanded to new horizons: musical theater.

Opening Sept. 21 at the East Village’s Theater for the New City, “Cleopatra: The New Pop Experience” fuses an EDM score with musical theater for an immersive audience experience that includes a live DJ and a dance floor.

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About B + B

Bedford + Bowery is where downtown Manhattan and north Brooklyn intersect. Produced by NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute in collaboration with New York magazine, B + B covers the East Village, Lower East Side, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and beyond. Want to contribute? Send a tip? E-mail the editor.